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A Rebuttal Piece by Raquel and Meseret Vogl
Broadcast only on a minor local channel and by a hacked television feed in Nagy Prison

Raquel: My name is Raquel Vogl, and this is my sister Mesert Vogl.

Meseret: Our last name used to be Lantos, but we changed it when we were adopted by another family. Ferenc Lantos is our uncle. When we woke up this morning, we were told our uncle was arrested for a crime he didn't commit. Soon, that will be proven. The next thing we heard, though, was our former adoptive father claiming that Uncle Ferenc abused us.

R: That was a lie. It never happened. It was true that Uncle Ferenc took us out into the woods. We hiked and fished and camped out. At night we would sit around the fire, and tell stories and roast hotdogs and marshmallows. It was the kind of thing healthy families do all the time. I guess that's why Aric can't understand it.

M: You see, our immediate family wasn't healthy at all. It was all punishments and beatings, and being told how bad we were. We never told our uncle how bad things were at home. Now, I wish we had, because he would have tried to make it better. It was different with Uncle Ferenc. For once, we could have fun and be kids. For once we didn't have to worry about anything. It was one of the few good things in an unhappy childhood. Uncle Ferenc was the only adult who actually seemed to care, and who actually seemed to enjoy spending time with us. Not in a sick way, like Aric claimed, but in a good way. The kind of way parents are supposed to be. The kind of way most kids get to take for granted. We think it's disgusting that Aric is trying to turn the best memories of our early childhood into a way to get back at the brother he hates. It's a lie, what he says about Uncle Ferenc molesting us. It never happened. Period.

R: I wish we could talk to Uncle Ferenc right now. We would tell him that we love him. That we always did. That it was in no small part thanks to him that we made it through our childhoods relatively psychologically intact. We will always be grateful to him. We will never agree with the lie Aric is telling. We will always tell the truth, that Uncle Ferenc was good to us and never hurt us.

M: We miss him. We want him to come home. And we love him so very, very much. That's what we want him to know. We love you, Uncle Ferenc. Everyone here loves you. We can't wait for you to come home.

Frankly, I think the networks are being disingenuous to act like they have the moral high ground here. They all saw fit to broadcast allegations of child molestation on the basis of nothing more than secondhand claims from someone with an obvious grudge who wasn't even present when the alleged incidents supposedly took place. But now that someone finally let the girls tell their side of the story, the networks are up in arms about "children's right to privacy"? Please!

Voice of the moderator: "I believe the issue is that the girls' names and faces were shown. They're minors."

What does that matter? The original interview shown on Channel 2 gave the name and showed the face of the girls' father. It's not like it would be difficult for people to figure out from that who they are. Just like we can identify the child attacked and left in a coma because of her mother, whether her name is said or not.

Channel 2 started this by calling Ferenc Lantos a child molester, without even asking the alleged victims if it ever happened. What were the girls supposed to do? Let the world think that about their uncle? I don't see how they had any choice.

Their privacy had already been invaded. Too late to close the barn door; the horse is gone. The networks aren't really upset about "privacy" or "the children." They're upset because the truth is getting in the way of their juicy story.

Just because they think Ferenc Lantos attacked that child...

Voice of the moderator: "'They think...?' Are you implying that you believe Ferenc Lantos is innocent, Doctor Cseh?"

I'm not sure that's relevant to the topic of the day. It has nothing to do with the privacy of juvenile crime victims.

Voice of the moderator: "Our audience is curious about your opinion as a professor of criminology, Doctor."

Alright. Please bear in mind that criminology is not a foolproof science. Human behaviour is complex. We can't always predict accurately how a person will react, given a certain combination of circumstances and stressors.

Voice of the moderator: "But...?"

But for Mr. Lantos to have committed this sort of crime wouldn't fit any established profile. He has a minor criminal history, but there is no indication of any innate tendency toward violence. Even in his earlier petty crimes - which, I would point out, were the product of youth and drug addiction, and Lantos is neither young nor addicted anymore - he was exceptionally careful to make sure no one got hurt, and he has since shown remorse for his past offences.

There is not a single violent episode in his background... except for the two times he allegedly murdered or attempted to murder someone in front of Deanna Anders. Anders admitted that Lantos is a stranger to her. So isn't it an incredible coincidence that he only takes these wild swerves into acting out of character when she happens to be there to testify against him?

Voice of the moderator: "For the record, Doctor Cseh, are you accusing Deanna Anders of lying?"

No. I don't know enough about her background or personality to make that call. It would be irresponsible to pretend I can. She could be mentally ill, or simply mistaken...

I do. This portrait of Lantos as a violent murderer just doesn't make sense. I think that the side we've actually seen of him - the peaceful side, the one that doesn't hold a grudge and wants to move on with his life - is the real man. Only Deanna Anders ever seems to see what she claims is the other side. I think it makes a lot more sense to suggest that Deanna Anders may be incorrect, than to believe she's right and the entire rest of the world is wrong.

Voice of the moderator: "Interesting, Doctor. Ferenc Lantos doesn't have many supporters these days. I'm sure our audience will be fascinated to hear that someone with your level of expertise is among them. Thank you for joining us today."

We've certainly seen Vampire violence. We know, too, that a Vampire has a greater capacity to harm a human than an individual human has to harm a Vampire. Those facts aren't in dispute. What I question is the assumption that all Vampires are by nature a threat. My argument is that increased capacity for harm does not necessarily indicate an increased tendency to do harm.

With humans, we understand that instinctively. An elderly person, for example, has far less physical capacity to do harm than a professional athlete does. Yet when the police find an old woman with a pistol in her hands standing over the dead body of her husband, they don't go arrest the footballer who lives down the street simply because the footballer has more physical strength. We don't judge who is or isn't a criminal in the human population based on their capabilities, but on their actions. We don't lock up or kill a human because he or she could commit violence.

I'm merely suggesting that we take the same approach to Vampires: when a Vampire commits a murder, punish the one responsible, not all Vampires as a species.

Of course, this means rethinking some aspects of law enforcement. Human jails aren't designed to contain immortals indefinitely. In addition, we need to rethink our views of what constitutes a fair punishment - for example, when it comes to humans, we think that life in prison is more merciful than the death penalty, but when lifetime imprisonment means locking someone up literally forever, death may actually be the more humane choice.

Those changes can come in time, though. For the moment, I think the more urgent thing to consider is whether elimination of the entire Vampire species is either a necessary or a moral response. Personally, I think it is neither.

Voice of the moderator: "Not necessary, Doctor? But you've admitted, sir, that Vampires have killed humans. Couldn't that be evidence that Vampires as a whole are inherently violent?"

No. I'm sorry, but what you're suggesting simply isn't possible, for a couple of reasons.

For one thing, sheer practicality. Look at the numbers. If the immortal population the military estimates is even close to accurate - if there's even a fraction of that number - then they should be wiping humans out en masse if we're their only food source and they're compelled by hunger to eat us. The killings are horrible, but only a few murders have actually been attributed to Vampires. More humans have been killed by other humans than by immortals in the period since the virus was identified. That being the case, it's obvious that most immortals control themselves most of the time. So we can't assume we're in danger from all of them, and some immortals must control themselves 100% of the time to get the numbers we're seeing. Those individuals shouldn't be wiped out because of what others of their species are doing, any more than we kill all humans when a human commits a crime.

Additionally, all the Vampire killings so far have shown at least some degree of premeditation. A victim was lured. The security guard died first. Files were incinerated. A camera was shattered. All this indicates intention, and mental capacity to hide the evidence of the crime. As I've been saying even before the virus was identified, even back when it was believed to be comparable to rabies, the actions of the Vampires who have killed indicate they are choosing to kill.

That means they could choose not to kill, too.

By all means, punish the guilty ones. But it's wrong and shortsighted to wipe out an entire species without really understanding them.

Voice of the moderator: "Interesting, Doctor Cseh. Thank you, as always, for your time, and for sharing your... unusual views. Best of luck to you."

Best of luck to me? What do you mean by...?

Feed ends abruptly, screen goes blue for the few seconds remaining before the next program starts.

A small blurb from page 14F of the newspaper The Budapest Daily Guardian

Doctor Béla Cseh, a professor of criminology at Eötvös Loránd University and a regular guest on the popular commentary program The Last Word, has been arrested on charges of subversion, treason, and incitement to violence. He was taken to Nagy Prison to await transfer to a military lockup, where he will be tried by a closed military court, which under our current state of martial law is the government's right even though Cseh is a civilian. No details have been released about where Cseh will be held or when he will be tried, but punishments up to and including death are possible for his alleged crimes. Authorities have declined to comment further on this case, and state that it is unlikely that the outcome of the trial will ever be made public.

The immaculately groomed reporter stands a minimum safe distance away from the smoldering hulk of a building that has been reduced to a collapsed wall and a pile of stone and rubble. The building was, until recently, Nagy Prison.

The military, in cooperation with the local police, made the difficult decision to destroy Nagy Prison, after an unsuccessful attempt to put down a riot in which renegade immortals took over the prison. After considering various nonlethal options to neutralize the situation and bring the prison back under control, military troops entered the building and were able to verify that all the remaining inmates had been infected with the immortal virus. At sunset, fearing the escape of these immortals into the outside world, the district commander issued the command to firebomb the prison. Afterward, soldiers entered the rubble to ensure there were no immortal survivors and to retrieve any remains for laboratory testing.

Authorities aren't sure how the immortal infection spread at Nagy, but they believe that three Vampires who were temporarily confined there must have bitten inmates in the general population before their escape.

In the background, a horribly burned man in the remains of an orange jumpsuit attempts to drag himself out from under the collapsed wall. A soldier shoots him point-blank in the head, and the man stops moving. Havas looks shaken for a moment, but continues to read from her teleprompter.

Although the district commander described himself as "saddened" by the wholesale destruction at Nagy, he assures us that no humans were in the building when the bombs were dropped, and that only inmates were infected - fortunately, all the guards and staff escaped this plague. He states that the families of prison employees do not need to worry; your loved ones are safe, and will return home after a short debriefing period.

The district commander also confirms that of the 403 inmates at Nagy, only one survived. That one inmate was Ferenc Lantos, who was released after the prosecutor dropped the attempted murder and rape charges against him when the alleged victim woke up from her coma and testified that Lantos was not, in fact, her attacker. Authorities administered the UV light test to Lantos before allowing him to leave, and Lantos was demonstrated not to have been infected with the virus.

All of the other 402 inmates were killed, either by the virus itself, by fellow prisoners, or in the firebombing after the widespread infection.

Following this violent turn of events at Nagy Prison, is unclear where immortals will be detained and questioned in the future, but top military brass hinted that on-the-spot execution of proven Vampires will continue to be the preferred option to ensure human safety.

This has been Etelka Havas for News As It Happens. We now return you to tonight's broadcast of The Shawshank Redemption, aired commercial-free for your enjoyment...

Good evening, and welcome to Magyar Nightly News, recently voted top news broadcast in Budapest for a seventh consecutive year. I'm Zsigmond Nagy.

There has been yet another shocking and groundbreaking development in the ongoing story about the immortal virus. Just moments ago, authorities announced the discovery of a second distinct strain of the virus, which produces immortals of an entirely different species.

This second species, which authorities are referring to as "Lycans," are more conventionally known as werewolves.

Disturbingly, Lycans do not have the same weakness to sunlight that Vampires have. However, they have a strong allergy to silver, which has both burning and poisoning effects. Lycans are even stronger and more physically powerful than Vampires, and are believed to live on a diet of human and animal flesh. They are able to shift their bodies into a form that somewhat resembles a wolf but can walk upright. It is likely that Lycans travel in Packs with others of their kind, and thus are particularly dangerous when hunting.

The announcement of a second immortal species was made as the result of tests that were done on the remains recovered from Nagy Prison, although those examinations may merely have been confirmation of what experts already speculated.

Military and civilian authorities released a joint statement today saying that the government's official position on Lycans is the same as that on Vampires. Lycans will be summarily destroyed upon confirmation of infection. Silver exposure tests will now be added to the UV exposure tests on individuals suspected of carrying the infection.

We now go to some of our expert commentators for reactions to today's news...